Development of a versatile lidar system based on passively Q-switched Nd: YAG laser for monitoring aerosols and cirrus clouds in the atmosphere

In this paper, we present an in-house flexible and portable lidar system integrating an inexpensive, passively Q-switched laser Nd: YAG and a detection module operating in both analog and photon counting mode. This system is designed to study the atmospheric boundary layer (BL) and cirrus clouds (CC). The passively Q-switched Nd:YAG pulsed laser, operating at a second-harmonic generation (SHG) wavelength of 532 nm, features a pulse energy up to 200 mJ, a repetition rate of 1 Hz to 15 Hz, and a pulse duration of 15 ns.